Monday, 19 November 2018

There is a lot of discussion about the bad effects of continuous, intensive, immersive social media usage (i.e. what is now normal everyday life for the majority of young and middling adult Western people); but what worries me much more, is the personal motivational state of which this usage is evidence.

It is the simple and obvious fact that the majority of people actively-want to spend most of their lives interacting with the mass and social media; on average, they want this - by evidence of how they behave - more than they want anything else.

(This is very often the case with addiction - people get addicted because they want to become addicted: they work at it.)

And what this tells me is equally simple: that the majority of modern Western people actively reject Heaven, and positively desire Hell - because the materialistic-subjective-passive milieu of mass and social media is itself a segment of Hell (i.e. that state which follows the rejection of salvation).

I'm not saying that the media saturation 'makes people' desire Hell; but something much worse: that the way that people have embraced the mass/ social media and made them the centre of their lives reveals that people want Hell, and that is exactly why people have embraced mass/ social media.

A revealed-preference to live by continuous mass/ social media is therefore a revealed-preference for Hell. Then, the media saturation will amplify and consolidate this preference. But the preference came first.

I am not saying 'this will happen unless'... on the contrary, I am describing what has already happened, and is happening; and what it actually means. And I am emphasising that the problem is much deeper than generally recognised - because when mass/ social media are being consumed immersively as a means to the end of Hell - then what Christians regard as media's ill effects are a desired feature, not an inconvenient bug.

The spiritually-malign effects of saturation-media are exactly why people saturate themselves in media; and why they do this purposively, obsessively - and why they react with such fear and anger when their continued immersive media usage is threatened.

The implication is that even if mass/ social media were savagely curtailed - or altogether removed; it would have much less beneficial effects than if the media had been the root of the problem.

The primary problem is at a very deep level in the souls, and in the fundamental life choices, of very large numbers of Western people.

Isn't just a matter of not being alert; because the most alert people include those who are most asleep.

In a spiritual sense, sleep refers to a blindness, rather than a level of consciousness. The sleep of a modern adolescent plugged into social media is certainly very active, very alert; but it is a sleeping-through Life. Such an one is passive, absorptive, reactive. Thoughts go-through the mind; and do not originate-from the mind.

To become awake is consciously to become aware of Living, as it is happening, here-and-now. That is one step. But further it requires a wider appreciation of what is happening in living.

But if living is conceptualised in the mainstream terms of modern public discourse; then it is indistinguishable from the processing activities of a computer. A person might regard himself as awake when 'switched 'on' and asleep when on standby, energy-saving... Such a person is asleep; always and inevitably.

If living is doing, then what is doing? If doing means altering stuff in the world; then we are constrained by the world. If the world stops us from altering stuff, the world has put us to sleep...

But if doing is thinking - thinking in some deep primary and active way - then thinking is something of tremendous scope on the one hand; yet on the other hand, it might never happen.

The thinking that comes from our divine selves emerges from a 'black-box', the workings of which are inaccessible - utterly inaccessible. That is the nature of freedom - it cannot be known, only its outcome can be known. We can observe the thoughts as they come-out-of the black-box that is our divine self - so, this means there is our real-self and there is an observing ego.

The observing ego is that which has choice - it can choose its attitude to the emerging thoughts of the divine self - for instance, does it regard them as illusory imaginings; does it regard them as necessarily true and real?

Mainstream life regards these thoughts emerging from the divine self as purely subjective and a species of wish-fulfilment. But the Romantic tradition of Christianity regards these same thoughts as real and true, because divine; because a part of ultimate reality - these thoughst from the divine self are direct reality - as constrained by time, experience and capacity (so we can know more, and more, of reality).

So, in talking to you - it is my ego talking with your ego; and recommending a change of your ego's-attitude to the thinking that is emerging from your divine self.

Sunday, 18 November 2018

If readers want to ask me a question - this is an invitation for them to do so; in the comments below.

I can't guarantee to print your question (because it may go beyond the guidelines - mostly legal - that I myself adhere to about the scope of the blog) - I can't even guarantee to answer the exact specific question, if I regard it as one for which the proper response is to go deeper and back to the assumptions behind the question; but I will undertake to make a response linked to an identification of the questioner.

I'm quite happy to respond to 'trivial' questions (of the favourite-colour, special-dislikes type); but also - if you are concerned about some aspect of my deep, philosophical and religious views and want that clarified - I shall do so as honestly as I can.

Saturday, 17 November 2018

The promise of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is that those who believe in him will have the reward of life eternal/ life everlasting.

As Jesus explains to Nicodemus; this is to be attained only after mortal life: via biological death and being born again.

Life eternal/ everlasting is the state of resurrection; and its consequence explained in terms of the various events of the gospel when Jesus contrasts the satisfactions of this mortal life - wine, water, bread, meat, sight - with the great, qualitative enhancement that these mortal experiences will have in the life to come.

How can we understand this?

The answer is that the resurrected body is what transforms worldly experience into Paradise. The resurrected body is eternal, everlasting, indestructible - and has divine powers of both perceiving and thinking.

(Because the incarnate body and the soul are indivisible, therefore transformation of the body is itself a transformation of the Man.)

The resurrected Man has, in effect, 'extra senses' unknown to mortal Men, and creative powers of imaginative and intuitive thinking.

(These we may experience briefly, in the context of our constantly-changing mortal state - but mortality is primarily for learning, rather than doing.)

Thus the promise of resurrection is itself the cause of the astonishing enhancements in the quality of living that Jesus promises. It is because Jesus brought resurrection that he also brought the possibility of Heaven.

Note: This was clarified for me by the discussion of William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell on pp 194-5 of Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye.

The mainstream Christian view is of God outside of everything to start with; and God, as it were, creating the Universe from nothing, inside of Himself. Time exists only within the created Universe. Men are wholly created by God within this Universe.

My view (which I got from Mormonism) is - to start with - God inside-of a chaotic Universe and 'in' Time; and Creation as a matter of God shaping the chaos around-Himself; in a progressive and cumulative fashion. Men, in a primordial form, are already-present in the original chaos, and are incrementally taken and shaped-into Children of God, inside of Creation.

The mainstream view is a monism, because everything began as, and implicitly reduces to, the unity of God. My view is a type of pluralism (the term taken from William James); in which primary reality is of many and irreducible entities.

The mainstream God's problem is to Create anything that is not merely Himself - hence futile; the pluralist God's problem is that Creation is partial and on-going - an imperfect, developing work-in-progress.

The mainstream God's Goodness is perfect conformity with God; the pluralist God's Goodness is the process of creating.

The mainstream God's Universe does not need to be 'held-together' because He created it all from nothing as a unity; the pluralist God's dynamic, expanding, developing Universe is held-together by Love - and Love is a choice, voluntary; an opt-in kind of thing.

To opt-out from the mainstream God's Universe is irrational because there is nowhere else to go - in fact, there can be no real opting-out. But to opt-out from the pluralist God's universe is rational; since each person has a primordial independence - it is to opt-out from God's plan of creation into chaos; to opt-out from the cohesion of Love into the solitude of pride.

Indeed, it is a positive choice for each Child of God, to join-with God in the plan of living and creating within a dynamic, expanding, developing Universe.

Friday, 16 November 2018

A knavish character will often say - 'Of what interest is it to me to do so-and-so?'I answer - 'Of none at all, but on the contrary, as you well know. It is of malice and envy that you have done this: hence I am aware of you, because I know that you act, not from interest, but from malice - even to your destruction'.

William Blake - from Descriptive Catalogue (re-punctuated and emphasis added)

So many people, so often, regard self-interest as the prime evil, and try to explain the evil in this world as due to persons and institutions motivated by self-interest...

Everything gets explained that way; so people will seek-out why such and such an action benefits the person that did it. And when this isn't obvious, then remote and indirect self-interest will be wheeled-out.

Contrariwise; if self-interest is not obvious - or if the chain of explanation is disbelieved - then it is assumed that there was no evil but merely some inexplicable coincidence, or incompetence - bad things are confidently ascribed to the sheer 'randomness' and uncontrollability of things.

Those who do this are what Blake termed knaves - cunning, dishonest, deceitful, cowardly, traitorous. In other words knaves are themselves those who are motivated by malice, by spite, by their taking of pleasure in the misery of others.

By turning away from the world to be perceived we develop an imaginative idleness which spreads a sickness and lassitude over the whole soul, and all vices spring from this... Murder is obviously an expression of the same death-impulse that suicide is, and all evil acts are more or less murderous...This death-impulse, this perverted wish to cut down and restrict the scope of life, is the touchstone not only of all the obvious vices, but of many acts often not classified as such; like teasing, instilling fear or discouragement, or exacting unthinking obedience.It is quite inadequate to call self-interest a motive of evil conduct, though the death-impulse may be disguised in that form. Self-interest implies a good deal of control: in all extreme vices there is a mania in which one is hagridden by a 'ruling passion'.

As so often, children understand perfectly that evil is spite and malice; it is only in a culture so sophomoric, so adolescent, so knavish as ours - that we claim to see-through the 'obvious (and true) explanation such as to regard evil as an expression of mere self-interest (most often specifically economic self-interest).

Yet self-interest is universal - and so is no explanation at all; especially in a world where 'goodness' is defined in 'utilitarian' terms of publicly-observable and quantifiable 'altruism' (e.g. raising money for 'charity') - such that altruism is itself the grossest form of self-interest.

Furthermore, the focus on self-interest serves to disguise real evil; because the 'mania' that drives a 'hagridden' doer of malicious evil will often bring about his downfall - and in modern culture that makes him a 'victim', worthy of sympathy. Instead of seeing self-destruction as a hallmark of the murderous nature of true evil, it engages our sympathy - and thus we are corrupted.

This is vital to bear in mind when so much of modern evil is bureaucratic, such that responsibility for evil is eluded, and we seldom know even the identities of those whose malice drives the evil. But, whether we know them or not, we can be sure that they are there.

When I venture into the mainstream mass media I expect strategic evil from the professionals - including systematically attacking Donald Trump for his virtues and his good statements and policies; but the mainstream religious/ spiritual blogs and social media are more worrying for what they reveal of stubborn, determined, deep-assumption-based adherence to the evil agenda.

In fact (from what I gather - necessarily very indirectly, via media of one sort or another), Trump is a considerably better-than-average mainstream US politician; better in the sense of what he says and does - mainly better in terms of honesty and courage when it comes to some of the most difficult terror-enforced Leftist-pieties. For that he deserves credit.

On the other hand, nothing Trump has said or done suggests he is going to reverse the primary, deep, sin of the USA or the West: its anti-Christian materialism in public discourse (and individual subjectivity). So, we should not be misled; Trump's leadership is only a better version of the same slow poison that has afflicted us since the early 19th century.

And it is here that the comment sections among the self-identified spiritual and religious people are so worrying. In the depth and vehemence of their TrumpPhobia they demonstrate a metaphysicalcommitment to the agenda of evil that undercuts all surface protestations of spirituality and religious concern.

These may well include people who spend many waking hours in meditation, prayer, reading edifying texts, doing altruistic works, conversing with others of their ilk, perhaps participating in church organisation and Christian services. They are people who seem to themselves and most others to be sincere. Yet this entire edifice is - plainly - erected upon cowardice, dishonesty and evil-intent.

I should not be surprised, since this is exactly what has been prophesied from the End Times, and I believe that we are in the End Times; but I must admit it does surprise me, recurrently.

And it emphasises that what is required of us - if we are to stop and reverse these end times - is an awakening and rebirth that is so deep, so metaphysical, so wide-ranging - that nothing of the kind has been known since the incarnation of Jesus.

We need not worry about looking for signs of such a thing, because if it were to happen it would be so obvious as to amount to a societal earthquake; although it would, inevitably, be misunderstood and misrepresented.

But unless or until something like this happens - when we will need to use all our powers of individual discernment to discriminate a real Christian rebirth from an Antichrist deception - we can and must proceed as individuals... not merely to resist (that is grossly insufficient and unsustainable) but to move-forward to the only possible counter-attack: which I term Romantic Christianity - a Christianity that encompasses and transforms our consciousness and brings The World alive, and makes its meaning and purpose a matter of direct personal experience.

I find a basic unsatisfactoriness in the usual way of thinking using categories - for example the debate whether each man has a body and soul; a body, soul and spirit - or just a body. For me, the argument bogs-down on what changes, what stays the same - what happens over time.

What happens over time seems (since the earliest records of Ancient Greeks) to be the problem with all categories - the reason for developing them, and the reason why they so seldom 'work'. It is, indeed, the basic problem of the philosophical tradition - how to talk-about anything (in a philosophical way) without getting into difficulties about change and not-change.

I think the problem comes-from the very roots of denying what is obvious to pre-conscious children - that this reality is one of Beings; and Beings are real in a context of time. What makes a Being is something to do with 'development'/ growth/ life.... we don't have a single category that works properly because of the problem with categories.

But if we start with Beings, and stick with Beings; we realise that the inadequacy of categories is precisely that they do not include this basic experience of entities that both remain themselves and also change through time.

It isn't a mystery or a paradox; not is it a logical problem - that is what Beings are. A Being may even metamorphose unrecognisably - caterpillar to pupa to butterfly - while remaining the same Being. A Being may exchange all of its molecules while remaining the same Being. This is built-in knowledge - and the problem only arises from trying to fit it into time-less categories.

The same with individuality... Something about modern thought pushes people into categories; and then these categories lead to further problems because they have blurred boundaries, they overlap, they change, they are perspectival... yet we don't spontaneously have a problem with individual people, once we get to know them - we regard each as a Being, and don't expect Beings to fall into categories.

As an example... What about sex, man and woman?

Well, we recognise that invididual human Beings are either a man or a woman; but we don't spontaneously create categories of men or women by using definitions, into-which each Being must be put... Man or woman is something that each person is - the beings neither derive-from nor are allocated-to categories.

And because Beings include time, then we don't expect a being to change from man to woman or woman to man; and if they appear to do so, then we may be confused about which they really are - but not about the fact that their state of Being is (if only we knew) one or the other.

The knowledge comes to us not in the form 'there are two categories that all humans must fall into, either man or woman' - but that we know many individual people, and each is either a man or a woman; or else we aren't sure which - but would prefer to know (if we want to deal with them).

We begin with Beings - and I believe that we should end with Beings, as the basis of our understanding of reality. That will means dealing with individuals, not categories - and as such, many of the intractable 'problems of philosophy' (and of Christian theology) simply dissolve. (Including the [pseudo-] problem of the Trinity.)

There remain the problems of living; but the problems of philosophy that have tormented thinkers of about 2500 years are seen as illusory; although, probably, struggling with them was valuable and perhaps necessary.

We began by unconsciously accepting the reality of a world of Beings; our task now is to choose to accept that this world really-is of-Beings.

Wednesday, 14 November 2018

Since epistemology displaced metaphysics; philosophers tend to leave-out God as an explanation. This is a big mistake, in many ways; since when God is left-out the strong impression is left that God is not really necessary, is optional.

Trying to explain reality without reference to the fact that it was created, means that there can be no reference to the purpose or meaning of 'it all' - and many philosophers seem to be quietly hoping that nobody has noticed that this has been left-out.

But even acknowledging God, does not get us all-the-way to an account of purpose and meaning, unless we take account of Jesus Christ. Because it was Jesus who told us the nature of God, and what God hopes from us - so without Jesus; meaning and purpose are not related to you and me and humanity in general.

In an ultimate sense, I would be the first to argue that our conviction of the reality and nature of God does not (and should not) depend on what we have been told; that is, it must not be based-upon scripture, history or institutional authority (either individually or in any combination) - any more than it should depend on philosophy. All these are merely communications, hence indirect: no communication can be sure or certain.

In the end, we must each of us attain a direct and intuitive understanding of reality.

However, since intuitive understanding is a way of directly apprehending Truth; all individuals will reach God and Jesus Christ as surely (more surely) by this route than by any which depends on, or is mediated-by, 'other people'.

My point is that when we begin our explanations with an understanding that God is our loving parent and creator; it is possible to explain matters simply and in very human terms; whereas when we leave-out God and Jesus Christ then we are compelled to speak abstractly, generally, impersonally, philosophically and with a great deal of assertion about texts, the transmission of practices and the nature of human authority...

I don't say it can't be done; but there are so many steps-in and strands-to the argument; that most people will fall off and get lost, long before the argument has been completed.

Note: This comes from William Wildblood's comment yesterday that Rudolf Steiner (in his vast output of words) hardly ever mentioned God - although he very often mentioned Christ... The impression remains Steiner described the means, but left-out the end. I have also commented that Owen Barfield could have made his job much easier if he had emphasised that 'the evolution of consciousness' - which he expended such great effort on proving - happened because it was an essential part of God's plan. A positive example to contrast is William Arkle who, especially in Letter from a Father and Equations of Being, explicitly began with an understanding of God's nature as loving parent and creator. I have found this extremely valuable - because most Christian dilemmas and difficulties can be resolves by recalling God's nature - understanding what he would, and would not, do.

If morality as presented as God's will, then this tends to strike a modern atheist as His opinion against mine. Why should God's morality be right and mine wrong; why should God get to set the rules for everybody?

The reason is that true morality is not detachable from reality, but interwoven inextricably - God is creator, and what we call morality is just one aspect of reality that we have picked-out and called morality.

So God's rules apply to us because God created us and everything in our world... but the moderately-sophisticated atheist will soon pick up the inconsistency in this argument... If God created everything including myself, how and why is there a conflict between what I want to do and what God wants me to do?

The answer is 'free will' - but where does freedom come-from if God has created everything? It doesn't make sense.

And - more profoundly - why did God make Men with free will? What is the intention of this - if not to sin, then how are Men supposed to use their free will? If the answer is merely to choose to obey God, then this choice is pointless - God might as well have made Men to obey in the first place!

My different understanding is that God created our reality, our 'universe'; but God did not create our free will: free will comes from our-selves.

And further that God is not primarily aiming at obedience; but instead at Men becoming gods.

My understanding is that God could not make men as already-gods - because being a god entails free will; so the intention is that individual Men will choose to grow and develop towards divinity.

So... God has created the reality in-which we dwell; and morality is part-of living in alliance with the nature and purpose of God's creation; living aligned-with reality. But free will comes from that part of our reality which God did not create; hence the conflict intrinsic to this life.

If we choose Not to live in alignment with creation-reality (to reject God's virtue, truth, beauty in unity), this is a rational choice; but ultimately that negative choice-to-reject condemns the rejector to life outside creation.

What is outside creation? In essence nothing; that is chaos, lack of meaning, no purpose, zero relationships.

But modern Man does not believe-in the reality of meaning, purpose, or permanent personal relationships... indeed modern Man regards all of these as tyranny, and would actively reject them.

So be it: if modern Man does not want them, then he is free to reject them.

What would he get instead? He would get his own way - complete freedom in a context of total isolation. If modern Man really does not want to be a part of creation, if modern man wants his own personal autonomy above everything; he will presumably choose to reject creation - including God's morality.

From this you can see why love is the key for Christians; love is the positive reason why you or I or anybody else would actively-want to embrace the reality of God's creation; and eschew the absolute isolation that total autonomy would entail.

Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Bureaucracy is identical with totalitarianism - a world (such as we inhabit) in which bureaucracy is constantly growing and increasing in scope and penetration; and in which the bureaucracies are linked, just is a totalitarian world: that is, an evil world.

It is not the aim of bureaucracy that is evil, it is the fact of bureaucracy which is evil. The medium is the message.

Most educated people are primarily bureaucratic functionaries; all are significantly bureaucrats, and in all instances the bureaucratic element is increasing.

The origin of bureaucracy is that deep impulse of rebellion against God and creation that we call Leftism - and most bureaucracies are concerned with Leftist projects - but bureaucracy's great advantage (as an instrument) is that its evil is in the form rather than the content: it appears to be a machine or tool, usable for various purposes - thus the enemies of he Left hoped to use bureaucracy against the left.

However, the opposite happened. All opposition to the Left was absorbed-into bureaucracy; and became the Left.

And bureaucracy is everywhere. Bureaucracy has become Real Life: What is not bureaucracy is not really real - bureaucracy is The Bottom Line.

Any attempt to attack, must bureaucratise to be Real; hence is absorbed before it achieves anything.

If the material world was all there is, we would be doomed. If groups were primary and the individual existed to serve groups, we would be doomed. If the public world of laws, regulations, and communication; of power, propaganda, punishment were the only Reality, we would be doomed. If what we did was all that mattered and what we thought was irrelevant - there would be no hope.

But it isn't, it isn't, it is Not.

And realising this; all may be well. Because there is God, direct knowing, participation in creation; because life extends beyond mortality - because of all that is left-out of bureaucracy; we are not helpless.

Monday, 12 November 2018

The demon's problem is that, by Not incarnating and having separated themselves from God's direct presence in Heaven, they are not-easily brought-to-a-point...

They are eternal and indestructible spirits who have taken the side against Creation; and as such they are Not-very-good at learning from experience.

Perhaps, the hellish economy works more by a kind of 'natural selection' among demons, rather than by the learning and development of individual demons.

That is, maybe the individual demons stay much the same (because they don't learn from experience), but one or another comes to the fore at different times and places and situations; for which they happen to be best adapted.

Some rise, some fall back down the hierarchy; and the supreme Leader varies at different times, and perhaps too in different places - hence the several names for the chief demon in different sources and cultures.

So The Devil may be sometimes the passionate and charismatic Lucifer, sometimes the coldly bureaucratic Ahriman, sometimes the sadistic Sorath - whatever is working most effectively here-and-now in the work of opposition to God, Good and Creation?

Theosis is the process of becoming more like God, more divine, more saintly (sanctified) during mortal life; theosis is the purpose of an extended mortal life (rather than simply being incarnated and then dying).

But this idea of becoming more divine tends to make theosis sound more rare and difficult than it really is; perhaps because we tend to regard it in a primarily moral way - so that the assumptions is that we are supposed to become more virtuous. Well, that is one type of theosis, the theosis of some great Saints: the saints of virtue.

But there are other kinds of Saints, and other kinds of theosis - for example of knowledge; specifically knowledge of truth, knowledge of reality - which is also a god-like attribute.

This fits ith the idea that extended mortal life is mostly about having experience and learning from it; every person, every place, every day is different - there is a lot to learn-from and a lot to learn... And we ourselves change, in both mind and body - for example we develop through childhood, mature, have emotions, get sick, age and die. We make decisions (good and bad) and live with the outcomes...

Mortal incarnate life therefore seems to be an excellent situation in which to learn; and perhaps/ presumably in this respect it is far superior to pre-mortal spirit life, and post-mortal resurrected life.

Theosis could be conceptualised, in a general and inclusive sense, as exactly this learning; we are meant-to learn from our life experiences; and when we do this is theosis - it brings us quantitatively closer to the divine level of knowledge as well as virtue.

I have never been able to make coherent sense of the standard explanations for the nature of Jesus Christ.

This, of course, does not matter when it comes to being a Christian - we simply need to acknowledge that Jesus was who he said he was (eternal Son of God, Son of Man), and to love him, have faith in him...

Christians, as such, don't need to assert the exclusive validity of any specific theory of why-and-how that situation arose.

Nonetheless, it is natural enough to seek an answer to questions about how and why Jesus got to be what he was, what was the 'mechanism' by which his unique status came-about: how it was that Jesus lived, died - like other men - but also, uniquely, brought us resurrection and life everlasting.

Anyway, an answer to this came to me yesterday that Jesus Just Was. That there is no causal expanation for why Jesus was who he was; but that he Just Was who he was.

The background is that all Men are unique, and various; so we become God's children as already-unique and we are incarnated as already-unique; and we end-up as unique resurrected Beings. And that Jesus was able to be our Saviour simply because he is, was, always had-been just that.

Not as 'part of a plan' from eternity; but an an unique person who enabled this unique possibility; which would otherwise have been impossible.

Somehow this insight seemed to quell the doubts, answer the nagging questions... Jesus Just Was. He was uniquely capable.

Of course, Jesus then had-to choose to, agree to become our Saviour - and he did, for which our gratutude and love are due.

Sunday, 11 November 2018

I plan to re-read Rudolf Steiner's; this time focusing on the later books (rather than the much greater bulk of transcribed lectures) produced after the philosophical trio (i.e. the books from c. 1898 onwards, published after GA/ Opus 2, 3, 4).

The re-reading is based upon five principles I have adopted with respect to Steiner:

1. Anthroposophy is a spiritual path; but Spiritual Science (Geisteswissenschaft) is a systematised expression of what has been discovered by Anthroposophy. Thus Anthroposophy is primary and directly-known; Spiritual Science is secondary and communicated. Anthroposophy I can and must know for myself; Spiritual Science must be understood and interpreted.

2. Steiner is a major, vital thinker of our era.

3. Most of what Steiner wrote (and to a lesser extent said) is derived-from Anthroposophical insights that are true; and therefore such writings contain that which is likely to reward consideration.

4. However, most of what Steiner wrote (and to a greater extent said) is Spiritual Science, and is presented in a way that is over-specified, over-elaborated, over-systematised. Therefore, it required a substantial degree of personal intuitive interpretation.

5. The Plan, therefore, is to seek for the simple and true insights that lie below, behind and within the complex and error-scattered surface.

Why cannot people perceive the reality of a malign, covert top-down strategy - considering that it has been so successful for more than 200 years, and is still running according to plan? And - one might be tempted to add - considering that there is so much evidence for its reality?

Well, as I have often said; evidence is secondary to metaphysics; and the Evil Global Conspiracy is invisible because of our metaphysical assumptions; therefore its existence can never be proved by evidence.

More precisely the Conspiracy is spiritual, and has spiritual goals; whereas mainstream modern thinking is materialist/ positivist/ scientist/ reductionist - which means that it excludes even the possibility of a spiritual dimension.

So a Global Spiritual Conspiracy cannot exist for most modern materialist people, because such things are not real. Evidence is irrelevant.

Things are - in actuality - even more extreme than that; because mainstream modern people cannot even conceptualise the goals of strategic evil, because such goals are spiritual not material.

By contrast; the modern notion of 'evil' is simply 'material selfishness' pursued with indifference to the means (i.e. being prepared to inflict suffering and death as a means to that end). Modern people cannot really conceptualise evil 'for its own sake' - but only as a means to self-gratification; and therefore actual evil is reinterpreted or invisible.

The mass of Mainstream Conspiracy Theorists are generally correct about the identity and actions of the Global Establishment - but because they too are materialists, they utterly misunderstand the motives of The Conspiracy; and nearly-always emphasise that the Evil Elite want power, pleasure, sex, luxury for themselves... whereas genuine evil would desire primarily to harm others. Thus evil is more like spite than greed.

MCTs point at problems such as poverty, violence, disease and death - and explain them in terns of being deliberate inflictions of the Global Establishment. But against any specific examples of such sufferings; the world population continues to rise, life expectancy continues to rise, standards of living continue to rise, and the prevalence of inter-national and civil-wars is much lower than it could be.

The 'evidence' is ambiguous - as would be expected if what is being measured is not what is being aimed-at.

The reality of the situation is that of course there Is a Global Conspiracy, and there always has been - the side of evil in the spiritual war. It's just that they are far more successful, powerful, pervasive than ever before.

So, in a world of evil triumphant-but-invisible; what does it mean, from the individual perspective? We are each and individually challenged to perceive reality and to respond appropriately.

Much of what happens in public discourse has the fingerprints of strategic evil all over it for those with eyes to see; and if we fail to observe that fact, then our failure is spiritual. But if we do notice, and do not respond as the manipulation intends; but instead think as as we ought to think, know waht is real rather than fake - then we have grown spiritually. Which is the point of an extended mortal life.

One of the great manipulations of evil has been to make most people regard Good in terms of specific, atomic, detached acts (such as giving money to someone poor, diseased or miserable); whereas in modern reality such acts are more likely to promote evil than Good.

But (as a generalisation) each individual person, and act, is a balance of Good and evil; terefore in an ultimate sense ther are extremely-few-and-rare Good or evil persons or acts.

Good and evil are sides - they are not people or what people do.

The primary way to be Good and to do Good is to be on the side of Good.

Therefore, we need to acknowledge the reality and nature of the Global Conspiracy, and be able to discern the fingerprints of evil. And on the other side, we need to discern, without our-selves and the world; the impulses of Good - to acknowledge and value them.

We need to join the side of Good.

That is one of the most important things for us to learn; hereand-now; in the modern world. It is remarkable how very few people have learned it yet; it is remarkable how few people are able (or willing) to make this vital discernment. These are the facts we live-with.

Well.. no matter how many are on the side of evil; we cannot be like them, nor serve them, nor advance their causes.

Saturday, 10 November 2018

The quote is slightly adapted from Charles Williams; it struck me as both absurd and true.

Absurd, because of the idea of the modern masses looking up from their mobile phones and asking their Christian pastors (which they don't have) for metaphysics!

(However, if they did; they would still be given morals.)

But the statement is true, nonetheless - in the sense that nothing less will suffice to address the modern malaise than a different basic understanding of the nature of ultimate reality.

Christianity gets nowhere in stressing morals rather than metaphysics; because morals depend on metaphysics; and when the basic understanding is modern materialism, then morals will inevitably be some species of the hedonistic (as well as incoherent): there is nothing else for them to be.

But when Christian metaphysics is dry and abstract - as so much of mainstream traditional Christian theology is dry and abstract; and as Charles William's own metaphysics was dry and abstract - then the sheep may feel that their fundamental problems are not being addressed.

The sheep find The World - the world as described by their assumptions and as experienced in daily life; and indeed them-selves as people, as souls - to be utterly dull and deadly: hence the mobile phones.

Modern Romanticism, as accessed via those mobile phones, and social media; is nothing but distraction, escapism, superficial stimulation: thus cumulative despair. It is just politics, sex and pleasure; the mere stimulation of responses - anger, hatred, resentment, schadenfreude, lust, laughter, luxury, smugness etc.

What the sheep need, what they 'really want' is a Romantic Metaphysics that is true, hence liveable. They don't know they want it; but nothing less will suffice.

But so far, Romantic Christians have done a poor job of explaining their metaphysics - often because they understand it in ways that are abstract, over-complex, too systematic - until Romantic metaphysics sound like just-more-bureaucracy...

Charles Williams fell into this trap with his writings on Romantic Theology. His basic ideas were exciting: that falling- and being-in love could be a path of Christian life; that a life of creative activity could be a path of Christian life; that life was an adventure quest and we were part of an altruistic and mutually helping fellowship.

But when Williams got down to specifics; the exciting ideas dissolved into complex, incomprehensible terminology. More crucially, Williams's detailed ideas were either wrong or simply incoherent.

In fact, Williams could in practice make around-himself a world of Romance, in which he and his circle of friends, disciples, colleagues could live their lives. It was this magical personal charisma that so impressed so many people; which made Williams so popular and admired.

But this was the person, not the metaphysics. Once Williams had died, it could be seen that his writings held only the shadows of that ecstasy in living that the man' presence could impart.

So, the problem of Romantic metaphysics remains unsolved.. at least by Williams. But there is an answer.

The answer can be found in the writings of fellow Inkling Owen Barfield; albeit again in a complex and abstract way. The answer can also can be found in William Arkle, and at times much more simply expressed; but Arkle is hardly known.

Probably, in practice, people will have to solve it for themselves or it will not be solved at all. And one would suppose that there are strong incentives to do so. Yet who - of the millions of mainstream, miserable, modern hedonists - is making any serious attempt?

There exists an answer. But one thing is sure: without personal effort, there will be no answer.

Friday, 9 November 2018

To define Romanticism with precision has proved impossible - because it is a movement, a phase in human consciousness; but those who feel it will recognise it when we see it.

To be included in this list, one must be both Romantic and Christian (and be someone whose work I personally respond-to):

William Blake
William Wordsworth
ST Coleridge

Then came several generations during which the Romantics were not Christian, and the Christians were not Romantic. Exceptions include George Macdonald and GK Chesterton, who link between the early Romantic Christians and the Inklings. Both of these I somewhat like, especially GKC - but I am unable to engage whole-heartedly.

Charles Williams
JRR Tolkien
CS Lewis
Owen Barfield

William Arkle

Current representatives of whom I am aware include Jeremy Naydler, Terry Boardman, and the Albion Awakening bloggers: William Wildblood, John Fitzgerald and myself.

Comments:

The influence of Rudolf Steiner is evident; since although Anthroposophists are extremely rare in England - Barfield, Naydler and Boardman are all of that ilk. This is evidence that Romanticism fits most comfortably with heterodox Christianity - despite that Tolkien (Roman Catholic) and Lewis (Church of England) were orthodox in their practice. Indeed; Blake, Barfield (for much of his life), Arkle and most of the currently alive people - are (I believe) essentially unaffiliated Christians; whose religious and spiritual practice is mostly and in-principle individual rather than communal.

The Steiner link is also important because Germany (in the sense of the Central European German-speaking culture - including Austria and Switzerland, and some culturally-Germanic cities not nowadays in Germany) was the other great origin of Romanticism - with Herder, Goethe, Schiller etc. However until Steiner's 'conversion' in about 1898; the German Romantic literary tradition was not really Christian. An exception is Novalis - the father of Romantic Christianity in Germany.

It might also be argued that CG Jung (1875-1961) is also part of the German tradition of Romantic Christianity - although (as so often with Jung) his status as a Christian is ambiguous - overall, I would say that by the end of his life, Jung should indeed be regarded as a Christian.

There are not many on this list; because I don't know of many Romantic Christians. It is a job still to be done, by each individual - since Romantic Christianity must be experiential (knowing 'about' it does not suffice).

However, I regard both Barfield and Arkle as having essentially done the necessary work and, uniquely, achieved Romantic Christianity: both in their theory and in their living.

Mainstream Christianity still tends to regard Traditionalism as a 'safe' path to salvation; and theosis as too 'risky' - and Romanticism is about theosis.

But for the Romantic Christian there is no 'safe' path in the modern world; and traditionalism has in fact become impossible (judged at the deepest level of motivation); as well as sub-optimally desirable. We feel that, in modern conditions, salvation requires theosis; so a purely salvation orientation can only be a kind of 'rescue' procedure.

Because ultimately Romanticism is not a 'reaction' against the Industrial Revolution, modernity and bureaucracy; rather, Romanticism is a positive path of divine destiny, concerned with human evolutionary-development of consciousness.

The aim of Romantic Christianity is (implicitly) to attain the divine form of cosnciousness (what Barfield termed Final Participation) as the primary goal of mortal life at this era of history. In different words: the aim is to restore the unity of Life - including the healing of the split between mind and matter, subjective and objective... to cure the malaise of alienation.

Romantic Christianity is both theoretical (metaphysical) and practical (experiential) - ideas and living both need to change; because otherwise the two aspects will be at contradictory, at war - and therefore unattainable in life.

The Romantic Christian demands that life be Christian - as its root and frame; and also demands that life (including Christianity) be Romantic - therefore it cannot accept the ultimate of primary necessity of System, organisation, institution, bureaucracy... these are all to be regarded as evils; even if, sometimes (in mortal life); expedient or even temoprarily-necessary evils - evils that challenge us to love, faith and hope; and to grow.

Love and creativity are the goal; with creativity as located in thinking, and thinking regarded as universal and primary.

Thursday, 8 November 2018

Blondie were one of the very best New Wave bands (late 1970s early 80s); with several first rate singles. Atomic is certainly one of their finest - an extraordinary composition and superbly performed, which repays repeated listening

What I like about this: The Duane Eddy style guitar riff repeating over modal harmonies, the driving hi-hat percussion, and superb bass playing - here and throughout. The unexpected key changes between sections. The subtle way that synthesisers are used - hardly noticeable early and coming forward throughout. The way that the everything drops-out to almost nothing halfway, merely synth keeping-time, before rebuilding via a bass solo, and drum break, leading back to the main riff and the full-on sound.

We aren't winning - we are losing; and we never will start winning - so long as we expect change via participation inthe instruments of our bureaucratic-totalitarian oppression; all that demonic-Democratic System of votes and committees...

Votes and committees are anti-Romantic, anti-Christian and intrinsically evil. Of course, Goodness comes only from people - not from systems - and Good people may be able to work-around and manipulate votes and committees in order to do Good* - but as soon as they start to assume that votes and committee decisions are, by their nature. authoritative over the individual - they will be doomed.

Once a system of Vs and Cs is in-place - then the individual is rendered structurally helpless; and can only change The System by participating in The System, which then strengthens The System.

If genuine and positive change is to come in The West; it will come from people rejecting the authority of votes and committees; and of recognising the individual as the only possible source of discernment and judgement - and authority.

No impersonal System can save us, all Systems will kill us - kill if not totally, then system will kill a part of us.

We see around us an actual collapse of the Goodness of Systems; the triumph of totalitarian bureaucracy; and we see this advocated, pushed and celebrated - more and bigger bureaucracy is wanted, a single all-pervasive Global bureaucracy - as the only possible way of attaining universal (hence inescapable) justice, equality, democracy, flourishing, health, education, freedom...!

All of this is rooted-in and flows-from impersonal System, in votes and committees. If you want to do something about stopping it, if you are serious about stopping it - you must, minimally, cease participating in votes and committees.

That's only a Start, of course - but it is the necessary beginning.

*To clarify: Voting and committees are also an evil within churches - evil both in effect and tendency. This evil may be compensated and overcome in the short-term by Good individuals; but the evil of V&C in churches (and elsewhere) can be seen to be long-term cumulative, by the bureaucratic attitude that they implicitly inculcate.

Over the past couple of years I have come to regard Romantic Religion by RJ Reilly as one of the very best books I have read - I am now on my third slow, detailed read-through.

The book is probably the earliest (1971) serious study of the ideas of The Inklings - and its central chapters focus on Owen Barfield, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and J. R. R. Tolkien. As such, and despite its narrowish selectivity; RR remains far-and-away the deepest and best explanation/ analysis/ advocacy of the underlying (implicit) significance of this literary, philosophical and theological group of friends.

The title Romantic Religion encapsulates the thesis; although in fact it would be more accurate if the title were Romantic Christianity, since that is The religion at issue here; and one that could not be substituted by any other.

The method is to define Romanticism, mainly by means of its historical lineage; and then (in the first main section) to use Barfield as the philosopher who best understood Romanticism and its unique significance and necessity. Lewis, Williams and Tolkien are then considered separately in terms of how they exemplify, and how diverge from, the framework of Barfield.

This time reading; I have become convinced that Romantic Christianity is the best term for what I personally believe, and regard as the essential future of Western Man - and especially English Man! I shall probably be referring to myself, in shorthand, as a Romantic Christian from now onward.

Of course Romantic (and Romanticism) are mostly, in the cultural mainstream of the past century and more, rather widely differently understood from the Inklings (and especially Barfield) mode. Indeed, 'romantic' is usually a pejorative or pitying term, signifying escapist, wish-fulfilling unrealism.

Nonetheless, Romantic remains the best term, for both its historical and etymological accuracy - and because many of the common ideas of 'Romantic' are entirely appropriate and correct from a Barfieldian-Inklings perspective: for example, a focus on love, creativity, fantasy and imagination, nature, ecstatic emotion, inspiration and intuition.

All of these seem to me desirable, as well as necessary; so long as they are rooted in Christianity. Indeed, it was-and-is the subtraction of Christianity from Romanticism, as early as Byron and Shelley, that led to the degeneration of the historical Romantic movement: degeneration into hedonism, Leftist politics and the sexual revolution.

No doubt I shall quote from Romantic Religion in the future; but anyone who shares my conviction on these matters, and who is prepared to make the effort to engage with such a book, would need to read RR if note entirely, then at least extensively.

Note: I find it significant that such an outstanding piece of intellectual and critical work, by such an deeply intelligent and rigorous scholar, should originally have been done as a PhD thesis at Michigan State University (a long way from the Ivy League); by an academic who was teaching rather than research orientated (he spent his career at the University of Detroit); and it was issued by an obscure publisher: The University of Georgia Press. This confirms a pattern I have often observed with genuinely high quality and original work in the late 20th century - it comes from the cultural periphery, not the centre. Or rather - what is officially the centre is actually trivial, derivative or corrupting - almost wholly, and vice versa. The reasons will be obvious to regular readers of this blog.

I have had a tendency to think of premortal life as being like me, now; but 'floating around' without a body. However, it seems likely that my mind was more like the mind of a young child.

So my agency was like that of a young child. Because I was a fully-physically-competent spirit living in a Heavenly realm I could do lots of stuff. And I was immersed-in divine love (something like a perfectly happy childhood in a perfect family) - God's will could flow-through me to do all sorts of things in obedience. I mostly operated by 'channeling' divine knowledge, motivation, competence...

But my capacity for autonomous thinking and choice was more like that of a child.

This is why (perhaps) I have few and vague memories of that time and state of being (and why many people claim to have none) - because it resembled the memories of early childhood, which are also diffuse and relatively-few (albeit extremely important to me).

And perhaps it also explains the nature of my positive desire and choice (and of almost all of our choices) to live a mortal and incarnate life - to accept the risks in pursuit of progression towards greater divinity (theosis)...

To incarnate in this body, this family, this time and place was the desire, the free and informed choice, of a spiritual-child - and necessarily so, because it was precisely in order to 'grow-up' that the choice had to be made.

But thinking of things like this may help explain not just why we don't remember much about pre-mortal life; but also why some people apparently 'regret' their choice to accept the specific mortal life they once regarded as 'a good prospect'.

They regret, rebel, resent... because all choices are always made on the basis of incomplete information; but this choice was also made by a being of greater spiritual immaturity trying to predict his future response to a situation experienced by a transformed self...

Satan has a big problem - which is that he and we and everything are part of God's creation: how then can they be rejected?

The answer is to create what is claimed to be an immaterial Alternative Reality; to choose to inhabit that AR, and by denying that we have made such a choice to claim that the Alternative is really real. In other words, Satan is the lead architect of the transhumanist agenda.

There is no need for you to do a thought experiment and imagine this situation - we are already there (albeit not yet fully so) - with the transgender agenda that has been very rapidly and aggressively imposed by the entirety of the Western ruling Establishment over the past decade.

The transgender agenda (by which self-defined gender incrementally-replaces, completely replaces, sexuality) needs to be recognised as a component of the transhumanist agenda; and both as the major strategy of the demonic agenda in the spiritual war.

Because most of this analysis (God, Good, Creation) is denied; dissenters and realists in The West have been helpless to prevent the imposed-reality of transgenderism - which is now assumed by law, and dissent from which is punished by law (and, worse, by mass media and bureaucratic employers).

The trans-agenda should be seen as a perfectly rational step towards the kind of Alternative Reality that the demonic powers need to be successful in the context of God's creation. It is part of a world picture that has been building-up over several generations; which has denied God, Creation and Reality - and asserted that this world is humanly constructed ('socially' constructed). The 'Reality' in the phrase itself assumes that reality is man-made, at will.

The appeal of the AR is the promise of freedom and pleasure - since, IF the AR really-was equivalent to created-reality, then in principle we might make Reality any way we pleased; without constraint. For instance; people could choose to be men or women, and swap back and forth at whim! Differences between sexes, classes, races, nations, individual people could be made or abolished!

If all that was true and possible (which of course it is not) there would still be the question of Who Exactly Is In Charge? - and the overwhelming probability that they would be evil-motivated people, who would shape reality to their own selfish ends.

But the problem is compounded by the fact that it is evil demons that arein charge of AR - it is their project; and demonic motivations are different and worse than human motivations; and their agenda goes beyond the gratification of their their own short-term selfishness into the long-term desire for universal damnation.

And - finally - the the very desire to create and dwell in an Alternative Reality on the assumption it is the Only Reality is itself intrinsically evil; because dishonest, because prideful, because of its hedonic hence self-centred/ self-ish motivations.

At some level, perhaps deep, we all know this to be true; which serves only to make its denial more shrill and spiteful.

In a world that denies Good, the Creation and God; the desire for life inside a 'reality' built-around our own pleasures and preferences, yet wholly convincing, is so great that all objections are swept aside by this desperate craving.

And so, Ladies and Gentlemen (to use forbidden terminology): This is the modern world!

Monday, 5 November 2018

Over on Albion Awakening, John Fitzgerald shares his spontaneous reaction to the 'vicious, calculated and deliberate spoiling' of an English institution. Interestingly, it is exactly three years ago that I finally walked away from this programme, never to return.

For the past couple of hundred years in The West, influential groups of people have been trying to get-by with less than the unified-Good.

For example, aesthetics - the beautiful, the idea of Art for Arts sake - was popular in the late 19th century, and recurrently since. But it does not suffice. One intrinsic reason is that The Beautiful is a part of that unified totality which is The Good, and while beauty may be distinguished from the totality it cannot be conceptually separated.

We also know this because living with beauty as priority has been thoroughly tried, and comprehensively failed. We ourselves can try the experiment, and discover this.

We may try to put aesthetics first and final; but will find that Truth and Virtue are unavoidable. People can, and do, split The Good into components - assert one or some and omit another - but the rejected will return. People will find themselves asserting that the Beautiful is also the Virtuous, and that it is also True.

If they try to escape this by focusing on feelings, and reduce Beauty to that which evokes Pleasure - they will find themselves asserting that this is True, that Pleasure is a Right, that the promotion of pleasure is a Virtue; that the infliction of pain, suffering, misery is Sin...

(I am here describing mainstream modern morality as asserted in the public sphere: hedonic utilitarianism.)

When Beauty is rejected, they will find themselves asserting the the Ugly is really, deep-down or when you properly consider it, Beauty. And that this is True.

Or - they may reject Morality, but find themselves asserting that Morality-rejection is the proper form of Virtue.

The Good turns-out to be unified and primary; and then the Good turns-out to be a part of Creation...

(Because if the universe was caused by physics, life caused by chemistry, and consciousness by biology - then The Good is merely a product of meaningless and purposeless and non-human historical processes - so is not really Good.).

And so we get back to a Creator.

It's an all-or-nothing situation - deny any component of The Good/ Creation/ Creator - and you are put into the position of denying everything - including the reasons for your first denial. THIS fact may, of course, itself be denied - but That denial doesn't affect the fact that the resulting is incoherent and contradicts itself all the time and in multiple ways...

My basic assumption is that in God's creation the default is that we need to choose damnation: that damnation is self-damnation. (A loving creator who is our father would not have set-up this reality - for his spirit children - on any other basis.)

However, we must agree to be saved. We just-are free, we have agency, we cannot be compelled to accept what is best for us. Jesus Christ has given us great possibilities, but if we do not 'believe on' him, if we do not love him; then we will not want his gift.

I guess that throughout most of history, and perhaps even now throughout most of the world, nearly everybody has chosen/ will choose to accept Christ's gifts; and do what that acceptance entails - but in the End Times this is Not the case.

The End Times are when the default state in a society is chosen damnation.

This could be for a variety of reasons; one might be the denial of any alternative - regarding the gifts of Jesus as a falsehood, a delusion, untrue.

A situation can be created and sustained in which the societal default is to choose damnation - in which expression of this choice becomes (in public discourse) normal, approved and rewarded. In which the expression of a desire for salvation is treated the opposite way: as unusual/ foolish/ insane/ evil; is condemned and punished.

Choice is - ultimately - individual and free; and cannot be compelled - but a society may embrace self-damnation and call it Good. Insofar as the individual follows mainstream, modern society - so he will choose damnation.

So we can see that The West is, indeed, here-and-now in the End Times.

As I keep revisiting Rudolf Steiner's now-validated century oldprophecy; I realise that, although the prophecy is about Western society, and what it needed to do - but hasn't done; and although the prophecy has been fulfilled at this social level - its true implications are for the individual.

The prophecy was based upon an understanding of what would happen if Western man continued in the path of increasing materialism/ positivism, scientism/ reductionism in public discourse and private thinking - and we did continue.

The spiritual realm is now regarded as purely 'subjective' - hence not really real, hence without relevance for social living. Reality is mainstream-structurally-regarded as meaningless, hope-less, going-nowhere; and we our-selves as irrelevant.

It is, of course, a disaster that The West has made these choices; but the lesson of the prophecy was actually for individuals primarily - it was that we must (and must means must) develop our spiritual consciousness into new realms - more exactly into a 'animism of thinking': a recognition that ultimate reality consists of living, conscious, purposive Beings in a creation that has been transformed by Christ.

This means that the modern public discourse has become - in rejecting God, Christ and the Holy Ghost - (quite literally) insane - as well as calamitous and dull.

But this operates at the individual level - and the social level cannot budge without first the transformation of individual consciousness - and this transformation can only be done by conscious choice; it cannot be coerced or compelled; nor can people be induced to do it by unconscious manipulation/ propaganda/ habit-training.

We must now choose the Good - because evil is the default.

The the lesson of the true prophecy is for you, and me, and everyone as an individual. It tells us what we must do if we are to avoid the general fate of our society: mental sickness, despair and demotivation.

Regular readers will know my principle of rejecting physics-based ways of thinking of metaphysics... Here I break my own rule - as this notion popped into my head yesterday and I found it somewhat helpful. But bear in mind it isn't True - it's just a model.

Most people nowadays see consciousness as software running on the computer that is the human brain. This means that consciousness is localised, and communicates with the 'environment' of the brain-computer by some kind of interface. etc.... It also means that consciousness is (like software) fragile, and tends to break-down - it can also be destroyed.

My idea was that consciousness happens in a gas - and gas is unbounded and everywhere (except where it is excluded) - so all consciousness is intrinsically-connected over time.

I imagined consciousness as something like a dynamic pattern of molecules within this gas, creating a concentration that is consciousness.

The degree of concentration could be higher or lower, and could become greater or less over time. So that a greater concentration of consciousness comes from a greater and more-internally-communicating concentration within this extensive gas.

Where does this concentration within the gas come-from, and why is it sustained across time - when the tendency would be for any 'randomly-occuring' concentration to randomly-disperse?

Well, my assumption is that the concentrations are the living Beings of reality, and these Beings Just Are present, from eternity; and to be a living Being is exactly to have the innate attribute of sustaining these concentrations of consciousness.

This is 'why' the 'self' is immortal - why our souls or spirits are immortal, why some kind of consciousness is eternal. Because each concentration of consciousness has-been from eternity, has sustained-itself across eternity, each 'therefore' is indestructible and persists forever.

That is 'why' there is direct direct knowledge of everything (except where the gas is excluded) because each concentration is a part-of the universal gaseous medium, and has experienced the entire history of that medium.

This model (but just a model - not True, because Being is primary - not physics) seemed a helpful tool for (sort of) conceptualising some realities; so I thought I'd share it on the off-chance it works for someone else.

Because thinking is primary (from Rudolf Steiner) we immediately need to distinguish thinking - because thinking knows itself to be self-contradicting. We need (at least) a thinking that can withstand the scrutiny of thinking.

We need, that is, a coherent Primary thinking - i.e. which satisfies all other kinds of thinking - which explains all other kinds of thinking - which explains itself.

...Although the conviction that this explanation is true must be intuitive.

In short, we need a thinking that rests solidly upon intuition, and which is never contradicted by itself.

A thinking that is both coherent and validly experienced.

To move to metaphysics; why should intuitive validity be true? (Rather than a delusion.) Only if it is built into Men by a personal creator god... This requires, minimally, a god that has equipped Man with the ability to know reality (including god itself).

However, this ability to know reality is Not the same as Man's original essence of being; Not the same as Man's agency.

Thinking is primary, agency is primary...

Therefore, there is an intrinsic potential conflict between agency and intuitive thinking.

In other words, Man can know - by Primary thinking; but Man's agency must choose to know.

The reason for the current - increasingly wild - accusations of Conspiracy Theory in the mainstream mass media - is that it is becoming increasingly obvious where things are going.

Anyone who notices where we are going and says it in public discourse, is accused of being a Conspiracy Theorist, therefore a mad/ evil/ idiot - therefore ought to be Shut-Up: quickly and forcibly.

And as it becomes more obvious where we are going; it is also obvious that the mass of people do not wish to go there.

But... for this reluctance to amount to anything other than a delay; there would need to be some alternative idea of where we want instead to go. It just isn't enough to say No Thanks! It isn't enough to keep walking, but drag your feet... You will still, for sure, end-up at the intended place.

If we don't want to go There, we must go somewhere else - must, Stop going there, turn to face a different direction, and start moving in that different direction.

(Fortunately...) That Other Direction does Not, in fact, have to be one single direction towards everybody suddenly begins marching in lock-step... No.

It could indeed be a multitude of different directions, with each direction pursued by an individual, or just small cohesive and supportive groups; people turning and walking towards many destinations; but simply Not the destination towards which the Global Establishment want us all to proceed.

We don't need to provide a unitary cohesive plan for what to do, don't need to align everybody to do that one thing together - so long as each individual is seriously motivated to do something other-than slouching together towards totalitarian damnation.

And this is why current persecution of dissent goes down to the capillary level of even tiny groups, families, individuals... Every-body, every-mind, every-soul matters.

What is vital is individual strength of motivation; and what is vital for strength of motivation is that the Whole Man be engaged. Which means that the Whole of Reality - including the currently-excluded-divine, including the excluded spiritual - becomes known as true, re-appropriated; becomes the basis of daily living.

And that is a job that can only be done by each individual - for himself. And each individual makes a significant difference; as should be obvious by now...

Saturday, 3 November 2018

The deep and ineradicable problem with all forms of backward-looking, traditionalist Christianity is explained by Owen Barfield's idea of 'RUP' - the Residue of Unresolved Positivism.

Of course, understanding the full power of this critique depends upon accepting the idea that human consciousness has developed/ evolved; such that throughout Man's history possibilities are closed-off, as other possibilities emerge. Nonetheless the negative critique can be appreciated even without this; if we take into account what is known about the Hunter-Gatherer societies that preceded the agricultural - and if it is acknowledged that the conditions of H-G societies were closer to Man's natural and spontaneous behaviour.

Anyway; the insight is that all agricultural-based - or 'agrarian' - societies are a development from H-G conditions, and contain ways of life that are specific to them - they are an historically-contingent society, as we can now appreciate since we are aware of the H-G societies that preceded them and the post-industrial revolution/ modern societies that replaced them. The Agrarian are 'middle' societies.

It is an historical fact that Christianity emerged and grew in developed-Agrarian societies - and many of its features were (either therefore or contingently) those of such Agrarian societies (and probably-therefore have declined since) - for example Christianity depends on literacy (which was not a feature of H-G societies), sedentary settlement, social-function hierarchy and specialisation - eg. a priesthood, an institutional church... and so on.

Furthermore, Christianity emerged and grew in societies where people were less able to attain direct contact with the 'spirit world' than H-G societies, and less 'animistic' than these societies; but much more spiritual and animistic than modern societies.

To put is another way, the agrarian Christian societies were not as positivistic/ materialistic/ reductionist as modern societies, but far more positivistic than H-G societies.

This Agrarian positivism is evident in - for example - their highly systematised, formal, abstract theology; their dependence on literacy with its requirement for interpretation, memorisation, analysis and synthesis of texts; the existence of specialised systems of law and philosophy - and so on. For instance; any system of Christianity based-upon the textual inerrancy of The Bible (which underpins much 'evangleical' Christianity of the post-industrial modern era) is significantly positivistic.

In other words, all backward-lookingtraditionalist Christian systems have a great deal of positivism in them - a great deal of materialism; with the consequent distance from the livingness of the world, the experience of the spirit realm and instead the experience of alienation (only sometimes and temporarily overcome in specialised situations such as ritual and prayer).

If it is agreed that we moderns need to get beyond positivism/ materialism, going back to traditionalism, going back to The Bible, just Will Not Work.

2. Is worth joining (i.e. really Christian rather than a Leftist political fake, as is usual);

This means that there are going to be many lone Christians - that is, many Christians who pursue their religion rooted outside of any church.

'Rooted outside' means that someone may attend or support a church, or several churches, with varying degrees of intensity and seriousness - but he does not consider himself to be an obedient or devout member. His belief is primarily individual rather than institutional. Such a situation is de facto the case even with respect to many devout church members - in actuality they base their faith and practice upon their own discernment and judgment.

Lacking the benefits of institutional membership, protection and support - there must be some up-front, proximate compensation for these 'lacks' - or else real Christianity will be so negative, so bleak, so unrewarded, so unappealing as to be a non-viable life-path.

This means that the individual modern Christian normally requires to be sustained by a much greater spiritual-experiential element than was the case in the past - the lone Christian needs to experience direct contact with the divine in prayer, meditation and other aspects of daily life.

And this awareness needs to be conscious and explicit.

For example, we all experience everyday miracles, but very few people are explicitly aware of them - however, the lone Christian needs to become conscious of these many ways in which God intervenes in his daily life. And all Christians have an unique destiny, due to the uniqueness of their-divine selves - but the lone Christian needs to be aware of treading this path - and of when he has stepped-off it.

Having spiritual ('mystical') experiences used to be very much an 'optional extra' for observant church-obedient Christians of the past - indeed 'esoteric' experience was often regarded as a hazardous (because self-indulgent) possibility, and better avoided.

But things have now changed; and more and more serious Christians will need to develop their capacity for, and awareness of, spiritual experiences - if they are to remain Christian.

Over at Albion Awakening; Anthroposophist and historian Terry Boardman believes that the last time the English were justifiably strirred - across both sexes, all classes, and in all regions - was the English Civil War (1642-51) - but that a fake Brexit would have the potential to do the same again.

Wednesday, 31 October 2018

After Jesus was identified as the Messiah and baptised by John, and after he had collected some disciples; the first incident in the Fourth Gospel is the marriage at Cana, the turning of water into wine; which is described as the beginning of the miracles.

The marriage at Cana describes Jesus's wedding (i.e. it identifies Jesus as the bridegroom - this interpretation being confirmed later in John 3:29). And then Jesus does his first miracle; why then?

My understanding is that the marriage was the moment when Jesus assumed his ministry - at the late age of thirty. I assume that the baptism by John what made it possible; the marriage was what made it happen. This is my interpretation of the governor's comment, addressing Jesus: 'thou has kept the good wine until now'.

Presumably, this was why this miracle was done at this time - as a sanctification of the marriage; that this marriage was, compared with an ordinary marriage - symbolically and literally - as wine is to water.

Otherwise, this miracle of transformation seems rather a rather feeble, even trivial, achievement; at least by comparison with Jesus's miracles of healing. Yet we are told that it 'manifested forth his glory' - so there must have been something very important about it.

(Note: Unfortunately, I get the feeling that there is something wrong with the Biblical text of this episode - especially 2: 3-5, where there is both an impression of alien interpolation and of omission.) Note added: I suspect that the marriage of Jesus being followed by the performance of miracles is related to the dyadic nature of fully creative divinity. This is implied by Mormon theology, with its assertion that celestial-eternal marriage is required for full divinity; and full divinity is characterised by the procreation of spirit children. This would suggest that it was necessary that Jesus was celestially-married in order that he would attain full divinity, with the same fullness as his Father (albeit, the Son lives and creates within the creation of the Father).

'Convergence' is a useful and apt recent usage to describe the process by which all modern Western institutions are becoming one kind of socio-politically-orientated organisation; all these organisations are becoming bureaucracies; and all these bureaucracies are joining to make a single, ultimately global, totalitarian (hence evil) system.

For more than fifty years there has been a general trend towards institutional corruption in The West; if corruption is defined as an institution purposively-failing to pursue its designated function.

Convergence is now, already, established as a universal fact: socio-political considerations are primary in all organisations that are large, powerful or high status.

There is zero institutional resistance to convergence; all institutional power is now in favour of continued, universal convergence; the drive is everywhere to extend its scope and pervasiveness.

The world is trying to tell us that institutions are evil.

But we don't want to hear this.

We remain institutionally-addicted. People so much want what institutions pretend to offer, that they are self-blinded to the reality of actual, achieved, increasing convergence.

Leaving aside the materialist consequences of converged institutions (inevitable socio-political collapse) we need to consider the spiritual aspect; because it is that failure which drives convergence.

When all institutions are net-evil; goodness is to be found in individuals or nowhere.

Tuesday, 30 October 2018

Rudolf Steiner was a first rank genius, whose insights are all-but indispensable; but there is no mystery about why his achievement is not more widely appreciated. The fact is that the bulk of his writings are nonsense and blether.

The nonsense is perhaps most obvious - I mean the truly vast volume of material purporting to provide detailed factual information on everything under the sun - and indeed concerning the sun itself, and planets too - the universe and everything in it. Perhaps the culmination was the eight volumes of lectures on Karmic Relationships, purporting to describe the several reincarnations of famous historical figures - following each spirit through these incarnations.

Then there are systems of education, medicine, agriculture and so forth. (And architecture - but I find Steiner's architecture and sculpture to be viscerally horrible - esepcially the current Goetheanum and surrpounding buildings.) Having evaluated a fair sample of such books, I now simply avoid them. For instance, I have spent most of my life reading, thinking, practising medicine and education; and Steiner's writings on these medicine strike me as wrong at every level, while the writing on education in mostly-wrong. Both are crudely systematised in a way that Steiner himself taught me to recognise as Ahrimanic; i.e. materialistic and bureaucratic.

(However, Steiner's early writings on science are absolutely brilliant!)

So much for the nonsense - what of the blether? Well, another problem is that even in some of Steiner's most valuable books/ lectures post-1894 - works on themes of consciousness, thinking, attaining human destiny - writings that contain material I am very keen to understand, on a topic in which Steiner has unique value - there is a tendency for him to launch into screeds of blether.

Especially so concerning (supposed) initiation and his (suggested) methods of spiritual training. To be candid; I regard this material of Steiner's as being mostly a mixture of wishful thinking and dishonesty. As I read, my bullshit-detectors are continually sounding...

I shall give an extended example. The Stages of Higher Knowledge (1905) is a book that contains much wisdom and many insights - it is not a book that I can ignore. There are three main themes: Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. The lectures on Imagination and Intuition have considerable value, in my opinion. However, the lecture on Inspiration I find to be almost entirely bogus.

I would advise the reader to follow the link, and read for himself - but I will cite a few passages of the kind that set-off my alarm bells:

Occult training therefore undertakes to indicate how the human being may make his feelings and his will impulses productive in a healthy way for Inspiration. As in all matters of occult training, the need here is for an intimate regulating and forming of soul life. First of all certain feelings must be developed which are known only to a slight degree in ordinary life. Some of these feelings will be hinted at here. Among the most important is a heightened sensitiveness to “truth” and “falsehood,” to “right” and “wrong.” Certainly the ordinary human being has similar feelings, but they must be developed by the occult student in a much higher measure. Suppose someone has made a logical error. Another sees this mistake and corrects it. Let it be clear how great is the role of judgment and intellect in such a correction, and how slight the feeling of pleasure in the right and displeasure in the wrong. Surely this is not to claim that the pleasure and corresponding displeasure are non-existent. But the degree to which they are present in ordinary life must be illimitably raised in occult training. Most systematically must the occult student turn his attention to his soul life, and he must bring it about that logical error is a source of pain to him, no less excruciating than physical pain, and conversely, that the “right” gives him real joy and delight. Thus, where another only stirs his intellect, his power of judgment, into motion, the occult student must learn to live through the whole gamut of emotions, from grief to enthusiasm, from afflictive tension to transports of delight in the possession of truth. In fact, he must learn to feel something like hatred against what the “normal” man experiences only in a cold and sober way as “incorrect”; he must enkindle in himself a love of truth that bears a personal character; as personal, as warm, as the lover feels for the beloved.

I find this dishonest; because this does not describe how Steiner himself attained Inspiration - he actually did it primarily via the insights into thinking from his early philosophical and scientific studies culminating in The Philosophy of Freedom (1894). Yet when Steiner wrote the Stages of Higher Knowledge he had been involved in teaching, through the Theosophical Society, only a few years. I know of no evidence that any of his pupils at this time - or indeed at any time, achieved anything like the level of higher consciousness that Steiner achieved. Indeed, in the past century of Anthroposophy, the only individuals who seem to have attained anything like Steiner's level of insight - Valentin Tomberg and Owen Barfeld - both did so largely independently of Steiner, via philosophical study, and without this 'training'.

As a test, he must patiently, over and over again, place before himself this or that “true” thing, this or that “false” one, and devote himself to it, not merely to train his power of judgment for sober discrimination between “true” and “false,” but he must gain an entirely personal relation to it all. — It is absolutely correct that at the beginning of such training the human being can fall into what may be called “oversensitiveness.” An incorrect judgment that he hears in his environment, an inconsistency, and so forth, can cause him almost unbearable pain. — Care must therefore be taken in this respect during training. Otherwise great dangers might indeed result for the student's equilibrium of soul. If care is taken that the character remains steadfast, storms may occur in the soul life and the human being still retain the power to conduct himself toward the outer world with harmonious countenance and bearing. A mistake is made in every case in which the occult student is brought into opposition to the outer world so that he finds it unbearable or wishes to flee from it entirely. The higher world of feeling must not be cultivated at the expense of well-balanced activity and work in the outer world; therefore a strengthening of the power to withstand outer impressions must appear in corresponding measure to the inner lifting of the feeling life.

This strikes me as just made-up-stuff; abstract and confused, over-dramatic and sensational; and nothing to do with actual students following any actual course of training. And there is this business of 'power'...

Practical occult training, therefore, directs the human being never to undertake the above-mentioned exercises for developing the feeling world without at the same time developing himself toward an appreciation of the tolerance that life demands from men. He must be able to feel the keenest pain if a person utters an erroneous opinion, and yet at the same time be perfectly tolerant towards this person because the thought in his mind is equally clear that this person is bound to judge in this way, and his opinion must be reckoned with as a fact. — It is, of course, correct that the inner being of the occult scientist will be ever more and more transformed into a twofold life. Ever richer processes come about in his soul in his pilgrimage through life, and a second world becomes continually more independent of what the outer world offers. It is just this twofold existence that will bear fruit in the genuine practice of life. What results from it is quick-witted judgment and unerring certainty of decision. While anyone who stands remote from such schooling must go through long trains of thought, driven hither and thither between resolution and perplexity, the occult scientist will swiftly survey life situations and discern hidden relations concealed from the ordinary view. He then often needs much patience to synchronise with the slow rate at which another person is able to grasp something that for him comes swift as an arrow.

Who is this 'occult scientist'? Steiner is talking as if from long experience of many people going through a prolonged, careful, closely-supervised training that has been successful - yet this cannot have been the case. And anyway, the whole way this is written strikes me as strongly pretentious; more like indirect moral self-advertisement than a genuine attempt to be helpful.

Take, for instance, a feeling of anxiety or fear. It can be crystal clear that often fear or anxiety is greater than it would be if it were in true proportion to the corresponding outer event. Imagine that the occult student is working energetically on himself with the aim to feel in no instance more fear and anxiety than is justified by the corresponding external events. Now a given amount of fear or anxiety always entails an expenditure of soul force. This soul force is actually lost as a result when fear or anxiety is produced. The student really conserves this soul force when he denies himself fear or anxiety — or other such feelings — and it remains at his disposal for some other purpose. If he repeats such processes often, he will build up an inner treasure of these continually husbanded soul forces, and the occult student will soon find that out of such economies of feeling will arise the germs of those inner images that will bring to expression the revelations of a higher life.

This 'soul force' is what I mean by inappropriate materialism and systematisation - it is a false precision; and indeed it doesn't sound plausible that any such thing exists at all. Students promised that they may conserve, build, be able to direct and use accumulations of soul force? No, this has a distinct flavour of misleading manipulation.

But it would not accomplish much to remain at a standstill with only such economies as those indicated above. For greater results, still more is necessary. A far greater treasure still of power to create feeling must be supplied to the soul than is possible in this way alone. For instance, as a test, one must expose oneself to certain outer impressions, and then wholly deny oneself the feelings that “normally” arise as a result. One must, for instance, face an occurrence that “normally” excites the soul, and absolutely and totally forbid oneself the excitation. This can be accomplished either by actually confronting such an experience, or by conjuring it up imaginatively. The imaginative method is even better for a really fruitful occult training. As the student is initiated into Imagination, either before his preparation for Inspiration or simultaneously with it, he should actually be in a position to place an occurrence imaginatively before the soul with the same force as if it were in fact taking place.

Initiation rears its ugly head. Steiner talks as if there are established schools of initiation, taking students through incremental steps towards higher consciousness and greater 'power'. Force and power... Yet there are no such students, and the only school of initiation is the one that Steiner is in the process of setting-up.

Now the soul powers that are stored up in the student's inner being by self-denial of “normal” feelings, as indicated above, are riches that would undoubtedly be transformed into Inspirations even if nothing else came to their aid, and the occult student would experience how true thought images arise in his soul, representing experiences in higher worlds. Progress would begin with the simplest experiences of supersensible events, and slowly more complicated and higher ones appear, if the student continued to live inwardly according to the suggested directions. — But in reality such occult training today would be entirely impractical, and nowhere is it carried out where work is undertaken earnestly. For, if the student wished to develop “out of himself” everything that Inspiration can give, he could undoubtedly “spin out” of himself all that has been said here, for example, about the nature of man, human life after death, the evolution of humanity and of the planets, and so forth. But such a student would need an immeasurably long time to do it.

Again, we are given the impression of an established, reliable, valid system - in place - indeed operating in several places; and with a large experience of the various problems and pitfalls. The student has only to follow the instructions patiently, earnestly. But if he does not - if he goes it alone, or studies with anytbody other than Steiner; then his progress will be hazardous, and immeasurably slow...

In any case no hope can be given that he will make rapid conquests in the higher worlds through any exercises whatever, unless he has at the same time set out to ponder incessantly upon the communications, purely narrative, that have been given from a competent quarter about the events and beings of the higher worlds. — Now that such communications are actually being presented in literature and in lectures, and so forth, and the first indications are also being given for the exercises leading to knowledge of higher worlds (as, for example, such indications as are presented in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment), it has now become possible to learn something of what formerly was communicated only in strictly guarded occult schools. As has been frequently mentioned, it is owing to the special conditions of our time that these things are and must be published. But also, on the other hand, it must be ever again emphasised that while it has thus been made easier to acquire occult knowledge, sure guidance through an experienced occult teacher is not yet to be completely dispensed with.

"it has now become possible to learn something of what formerly was communicated only in strictly guarded occult schools"... Well, this is a concentrated example of what I mean by blethering bullshit. Steiner is engaged in a 'soft sell' here; creating a framework of hopes and warnings, all of which point at what he, uniquely, promises to provide. Yet, a century later, we can see that Steiner could not provide what he promised (or else nobody was able to follow the path prescribed).

Anthroposophy was supposed to be a path, a way, a spiritual process - and Steiner was here purporting to describe this path. But the method did not work - and instead Anthroposophy has become the preservation, study, learning and implementation of all of Steiner's findings/ assertions.

There was no method of training, initiation was a fantasy; then, as now, we do this alone - or not at all.